2011 Honda Classic Golf Betting
The PGA Tour comes to Florida this week as the competition revs up at the 2011 Honda Classic at the PGA National Championship Course in Palm Gardens. Scheduled to compete is a field of 132 golfers shooting for a share of the $5.7 million dollar purse led by world number one Lee Westwood. Spain’s Camillo Villegas, aka Spiderman, for his unorthodox style of reading greens, is the defending champion having shot a 13 under par 270 on the 7158-yard par 70 course last year.
2011 Honda Classic Betting Odds
These are the current odds after round 1 on Thursday night at the Bodog Sportsbook.
- Matt Kuchar: 8/1
- Lee Westwood: 8/1
- Charl Schwartzel: 10/1
- Y-E Yang: 11/1
- Spencer Levin: 11/1
- Stuart Appleby: 14/1
- Greg Chalmers: 20/1
- Jeff Overton: 20/1
- Sean O’Hair: 28/1
- Luke Donald: 33/1
- Graeme McDowell: 33/1
2011 Honda Classic PGA Tournament Preview
The Honda Classic is in its 40th year on the PGA Tour having started back in 1972 as the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic. Past winners include greats like Tom Weiskopf, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus who won it three years in a row during the 1970’s, as well as modern stars like Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, Vijay Singh and others.
The course is a challenging layout designed by Jack Nicklaus offering high risk and high reward for players of all skills. The long hitters can thrive and die on some par fours while the fairway to green masters can go low if they are accurate with their approaches. The greens vary depending upon weather but a keen eye is necessary on Sunday to close the event.
In 2005, no one was better than Harrington when he shot a record final round of 63 to earn his title here. This course is much different than in 2005 when Harrington blitzed it for his win. Many holes have been lengthened, tees elevated and greens changed. At least half a dozen new bunkers have been added making shot and club selection critical on every hole.
Among those set to compete are past winners Singh, Els, Matt Kuchar, Tim Herron, Stuart Appleby, Mark Calcavecchia, Jesper Parnevik, Luke Donald, Justin Leonard and Y.E. Yang. Villegas will be a tough defending champion as he has been playing well. Course knowledge is important here as is strategy off the tee. Former champions will have an advantage this week. The entire field is star studded despite the absence of top Americans like Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. The overseas contingent led by Westwood could make an impact this week again as they dominated the Accenture Match
Play last week.
The names to watch come Sunday are Westwood of course, Allenby, Appleby, Donald and, look out for Adam Scott and Justin Rose. A dark horse who could sneak into Sunday’s final pairing would be Ian Poulter despite his rough time at match play last week.
For more information about betting on the PGA Tour, visit our Golf Betting page.
